Chapter Eleven

McCoy came into sickbay without a word, his beard scratching Chapel’s face during the one hug he gave her before he began to swear quietly at the look of the new medical equipment there. He expressed his unhappiness in enough detail for the tall, handsome woman to recover from the surprise of his entrance—and now she was able to sit back and watch with some amusement as he began a tentative and suspicious inspection of the gleaming array of highly sophisticated life-sciences equipment there.

Christine Chapel, M.D., had been a Ph.D in biomedical research when she had volunteered seven years ago to serve on the Enterprise as its head nurse. During those years, her admiration for McCoy’s medical ability had reached near to professional worship. She had learned more from him than from her more formal study and recent internship which had added M.D. to her titles. She knew that McCoy was undoubtedly secretly pleased over the high quality of the medical equipment here, although he would probably go on forever pretending that all he really ever needed was a patient in need and his own senses to guide him in seeing the truth of that patient’s condition.

McCoy’s other dictum was that the human body and mind contained physical protection and repair mechanisms that the primary and most proper function of the physician was to assist patients in healing themselves. She had seen enough examples of his incredible abilities in holistic medicine to know that most of his contempt for drugs and surgery was genuine. Yet, when the need arose, McCoy could be as skilled a surgeon as she had ever seen function, and his pharmaceutical knowledge spanned half a hundred planets. And of the medical hardware here, most of it was the result of McCoy’s own studies and recommendations.

Despite more sounds of annoyance, McCoy could not take his eye off the improved body-scan table with its remarkable capacity to render any part of a patient transparent, as if the body were constructed of layered glass. It was also capable of scanning a patient so thoroughly that it could measure even molecule pattern changes within a single cell of the body. Chapel could see he was also secretly pleased that Starfleet had provided Daystrom equipment which used some of the Fabrini medical symbols which McCoy had found and Spock had translated from the writings of a ten-thousand-year-dead civilization.

“They tell me you’ve been certified a ship’s doctor.” McCoy had turned and was giving her a challenging look.

“Yes, Leonard. I was certified two years ago.” She saw a blink of surprise at her use of his first name. But her title and medical degrees were as legitimate as his—even though she had served him as a nurse during almost five years out there.

“Doesn’t it bother you that I’m taking over?” challenged McCoy. “You’ve just been demoted to assistant to the ship’s doctor.”

“And I have never been so pleased and relieved over anything in my life.” Not even McCoy could doubt the look of sincerity in her blue eyes.

“Let me see your medical log on the captain,” McCoy said.

Chapel almost sighed in relief. If McCoy were testing her, he would find her well prepared on this subject. During all those years of working with McCoy, she had come to understand the importance of the relationship between a starship’s captain and chief medical officer. At the heart of this relationship was the fact that a ship’s doctor was charged with grave responsibilities concerning the captain’s physical, emotional, and mental health, plus the authority to relieve that ship’s captain from duty under certain circumstances. It could not be otherwise in a service where exploration was reaching so far into the galaxy now that a starship captain might go for a year or longer without any contact with the Admiralty.

McCoy sat studying Chapel’s log entries, clearly impressed over the amount of information she had accumulated on Kirk and other key personnel. She had been helped by the fact that the medical perscan device had become routine in starships—it was a tiny scanner-transceiver which was now worn by all crew members, permitting the body’s vital signs to be monitored from sickbay at all times. (In the new full dress and duty uniforms, it was part of the belt ornament, this center-abdomen position being the ideal location for a medical scanner.) This information, of course, was kept as confidential as all other medical records,¹ but it did have the considerable advantage of providing the ship’s medical department with a continuous, all-conditions physical status report on everyone aboard the starship.

“These anagram conversions on the captain mean what?” asked McCoy. “Do you see them as stress indications?”

“Definitely. Don’t you?” Her firm tone elicited a quick glance from McCoy; he could see that she was cautioning him that this represented no casual medical analysis of Kirk’s present physical condition. Although it represented only fifteen hours of perscan records (since Kirk arrived aboard), Chapel had also obtained other recent medical records on Kirk from Starfleet, and her comparisons of the two showed definite indications of recent strong emotional stress of some sort.

McCoy had felt some vague worries about Jim Kirk from the moment he had heard that his former captain had somehow regained commandof the Enterprise again. After all, McCoy’s resignation from the service had concerned this very subject. Upon learning that Admiral’s stars were to be offered to Kirk, McCoy had protested vehemently and had secured the backing of other prominent medical officers in the fight. It was not that McCoy had any objection to his friend being promoted and honored—his was a medical protest over the fact that Kirk’s psychological profiles were being ignored by the Admiralty in offering the promotion. When McCoy’s protests were rejected by Nogura, callously rejected in McCoy’s opinion, he had angrily resigned from Starfleet. McCoy had grown to know Kirk too well to have any hopes that he could adjust at this point in his life to an Earthbound existence—or for that matter to any existence that did not offer at least some challenges and freedoms that Kirk had known in starship command.

What was Chris Chapel saying . . . ? It was something which paralleled his own thoughts about Kirk.

“ . . . and in his case,” Chapel continued, “starship command fitted his psychological needs so perfectly that deprivation of it produced physical and emotional symptoms remarkably like those associated with narcotic withdrawal.”

McCoy looked up sharply, intending to comment that this was like comparing apples and coconuts. But then he realized that Chapel might be surprisingly close to the real truth.

Jupiter was coming up fast, massive, its colorflow patterns looking as artificial as always. Kirk had not been so close to this immense planet in eight years, and he marvelled how the great red spot, with its dark center now larger than ever, seemed like a great eye looking out toward them. Several of Jupiter’s moons were in view, Io and Ganymede particularly, reminding Kirk that the movement of these moons seen through Galileo’s telescope had been one of humanity’s first proofs that Earth was not the center of the universe. The so-called mutant-farm civilizations of pre-history had known this, of course, but their information had been a gift and not the result of human labor and growth.

“Jupiter comcon has been advised of our intended warp speed plot,” reported Decker.

Kirk nodded an acknowledgment. So far, Decker’s performance of his Exec and Science Officer duties had been more than satisfactory. Not that Kirk did not expect problems sooner or later, but meanwhile it was pleasant to sit and watch Jupiter slip past them.

In the last few centuries mankind had pyramided Galileo’s discoveries into knowledge and feats which few early scientists could have ever imagined. Was it Einstein or Clarke who had foreseen the scattered necklace of energy collectors linking Sol and Earth? Kirk remembered reading of an O’Neill who had predicted the delightful range of planettes which humans had eventually constructed, the latest and largest of which had been made possible by the useful combinations of materials and chemicals abundant here in Jupiter’s mini-solar system.

The moon Io had held some shocks for the first Earth scientists to land there, although not nearly as shattering as the earlier discovery that Earth’s own moon had once served as a base for space voyagers (their identity still a mystery) who had conducted genetic experiments with Earth’s early life forms a million or more years before human history had begun.

Kirk saw the navigator Ilia press in the heading and course alterations he had requested earlier. He saw her look toward him and he nodded his acknowledgment that her navigation plot was ready.

Captain’s log, stardate 7412.6. Two point seven hours from launch. We have delayed engaging warp drive until now so that fuel balance simulation tests could be completed. Although both our Chief Engineer and Exec are unhappy with our test results, I cannot risk delaying any longer. We must intercept the Intruder at the earliest possible time.

Jupiter was behind them now, receding on the viewer. Kirk had sensed that Decker, at the science station behind him, had his computations ready but was not entirely happy with them.

“Captain,” said Decker as he continued to double-check his console equations, “assuming we have full warp capacity, accelerating to warp seven will bring us to I.P. with the Intruder in twenty point one hours.”

“Science officer’s computations confirmed,” said Ilia.

Kirk’s peripheral vision caught an exchange of more than just a casual glance between the Deltan and his exec and science officer combination. This was interrupted by the port elevator doors parting, revealing a clean-shaven and correctly uniformed Dr. McCoy coming onto the bridge. Good old Bones. Kirk could feel his spirits brightening further, despite the doctor’s dour expression.

“Well, Bones, do the new medical facilities meet with your approval?”

“They do not,” McCoy stated emphatically. “It’s like working in a damned computer center.”

“Program now set for standard warp entry,” said Decker to Kirk.

Kirk started to turn to the helm, but Decker hadn’t finished. “Captain, this is your decision to make, of course, but I still recommend additional fuel simulation studies.”

“Mr. Decker, the only point in intercepting the Intruder is to have time to investigate it before it reaches Earth. That means we need warp drive now!” Kirk was aware that McCoy was giving him a curious look, but Decker’s request for further fuel studies deserved a stern reply. Kirk hit the intercom switch. “Engineering, stand by for warp drive.”

Scotty’s worried reply came immediately. “Captain, we need further warp simulation on the flow sensors . . . ”

“Engineer,” Kirk persisted, “we need warp speed now!”

“You’re pushing, Jim,” said McCoy gently. “Your people know their jobs.” Kirk found himself resenting the doctor’s intrusion. I know my job, too, Doctor, said the look he gave McCoy.

“Hold on for one minute please, Captain,” Scott’s intercom said. Kirk held. Through the intercom Kirk could also hear the growing rumble of the intermix chambers as Scott nursed the engines toward warp level power. Scott and an engine technician could be heard muttering in the background. “I can’t estimate it any better,” Kirk heard the technician say. Scott’s words sounded grim. “Aye, lad.” Then, Scott was speaking directly into the intercom: “It’s borderline on the simulator, Captain. I canna guarantee that she’ll—”

Kirk cut him off. Couldn’t anyone comprehend the urgent need for an early interception of whatever was out there? “Warp drive, Mr. Scott,” he said firmly. “Ahead warp one, Mr. Sulu.”

“Accelerating to warp one, sir.” As Sulu began moving the helm controls, Kirk could feel the slight reverb of increasing power.

Almost a century ago, the first successful quantum leap of a starship into warp drive made hash of all those theories based on too narrow or unimaginative an interpretation of Einstein’s work. That first starship and those aboard her did not become pure energy. What happened, of course, was that when the starship reached the threshold of light speed, it also reached that boundary between “normal” space and hyperspace. That boundary was time, making it appear to those first travelers into hyperspace that the universe around their starship had suddenly begun to shrink in size. Beginning with warp one and increasing geometrically, the higher the warp speed, the “smaller” the universe and the closer together the points within it become.

Meanwhile, Sulu had continued his steady count. “  . . . now at warp point seven . . . point eight . . . point nine . . . ”

“I have a time continuum indication . . . !” It was Decker calling a warning that their boundary approach was uneven.

“Warp one, sir,” offered Sulu.

Kirk swung his seat around toward the science station. “Mr. Decker—” he began. He never finished the sentence in the pandemonium of alarm Klaxons, bells, and cries that began. On the main viewer, the hyperspace spiraling of stars and fluid light suddenly narrowed into a vortex as if a plug had been pulled and the universe was being sucked spiraling down a cosmic sink drain.

“Wormhole!” Kirk snapped to Sulu. “Get us back on impulse power! Full reverse!”

Klaxons continued blaring loudly while the viewer offered a window on the time-matter distortion which the Enterprise had created. Stars became strange elongated shapes as the Enterprise was drawn deeper and deeper into the hyperspace vortex. The ship was beginning to rock violently as the helm controls ceased functioning normally.

“Negative helm control, Captain!” shouted Sulu above the din. “Going reverse on impulse power!”

“Subspace frequencies are jammed by wormhole effect!” shouted Uhura.

Decker, consulting his science viewer, simultaneously yelled his findings: “Negative control from inertial lag will continue twenty-two seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed!”

From the Deltan navigator: “Unidentified small object has been pulled into the wormhole with us, Captain! Directly ahead!”

“Forcefields up full! Put object on viewer!” Kirk had to shout it to make his words intelligible. Time distortion was becoming noticeable, affecting everything they saw or heard. The main viewer was showing a tiny point of light directly ahead of them. The ship’s computer droned on, “Collision alert! Collision alert!”

“Manual override!” Kirk shouted toward Sulu.

“No manual response!” Sulu worked futilely at his console controls.

“Navigational deflectors coming up!” reported the Deltan navigator. Then she reacted in alarmed dismay: “Navigational deflectors inoperative, Captain!”

From the science console, Decker reported: “I believe it’s an asteroid, Captain!” He touched a main viewer control and the image there jumped two magnifications ahead, revealing the object hurtling toward them. No longer a tiny point of light, it was now a distorted-looking, pitted chunk of space rock—an asteroid, its bulk looming larger and larger on the viewer as it tumbled in on a collision course with Enterprise!